Once but Always?
by sardonicsmile
Summary: Jon & Thayet have a daughter, teenage Princess Kalasin. Alanna has married George & has spent many happy years with him..until now. She also develops a friendship with Kalasin. What will develop if both Jon and Alanna meet by chance in Corus?
1. Contemplation

**Once... but Always?** by sardonicsmiile  


  
_Disclaimer: The marvelous world of Tortall and all its occupants (except ones of my own creation, and I haven't been all that creative yet) belong to the fabbity-fab-fab Tamora Pierce. If you haven't read any of her novels, go and read them now!!_  
  
A/N: The premise behind this fanfic is that Jon & Thayet are married, and have a teenage daughter (Princess Kalasin), who wanted to study to be a knight, but Jon (as he tends to be a prig at times) refused and sent her to the convent. Alanna and George are also married, and living at Pirate's Swoop, but have no children. This takes place around the time of Page, so perhaps Kel will make a surprise appearance... No. No promises yet! *smiles* Anyways, I'm all for A/J, so if I get a little sappy.. Remember this is my first fanfic and I LIKE fluff! Fluff and reviews are my first loves...  


* * *

Jon frowned slightly as he went through his past belongings, sifting through tunics patched until the patches were threadbare themselves, discarded hose from hours spent a'courting (when all he really wanted was his squire), and... What was this? He shook out a long forgotten saddlebag, expecting to find naught but a few silver nobles or perhaps the remnants of one of Gary's numerous practical jokes. Instead --- It fell out upon the floor, clattering amongst a charm given to him by the Bazhir when he voyaged to the Black City, long ago. He remembered the charm - and who was with him when he received it. What he discovered while in the Black City...   
  
He bent down to pick It up, brushing the charm aside with a swipe of his hand. He knew what it was, even before he carefully flipped It over on his palm, revealing its magic. It was her. No, not her, but an image, capturing her beauty in a way not even the most carefully worded sonnet could, although Mithros knew that he had tried - to write poetry, to sketch, to do anything to portray her loveliness, his lust, in one perfect package, detaining it for his own pleasure. But this was better. Beautiful as she once was, beautiful as she was now. Beautiful. She always was beautiful to him, her hair, her eyes, her very spirit setting her apart.  


* * *

Alanna sighed, leaning over one of the numerous balconies that haunted the walls of Pirate's Swoop. The sea breeze sieved through her hair, sweeping her ginger curls around her face. The ocean - she always had loved the sound, even if it made her sick. Love... Sick... George... It didn't seem like all was right between them, as before.   
  
"Our relationship..." she sighed to herself, the wind carrying off her words for none to hear except as the faintest lilting of despair, the smallest musical note of sadness. "It's lacking the passion, the excitement that it once had," she sighed, again. Alanna smoothed her cotton breeches with her hand, noting that they were both sensible and comfortable, just like... George and herself? "Is that why I agreed to marry George? Because our relationship was safe, and he trusted me and I trusted him? And because George was convenient and there, and He was not?" Still, Alanna liked the way the pants moved about her legs as she walked from one end of the balcony to the other, allowing her freedom of movement and the knowledge that she had, no, earned, the right to choose what she wanted to wear: frilly skirts (which she did enjoy, on occasion) or the loose feeling of pants that swum about her body.   
  
"Alanna?" George's voice could be heard echoing throughout the courtyard below. "My Lioness, I know you're lurking around here somewhere, fighting the forces of evil - Stormwings and kraken and whatnot." She grimaced at the sound of his voice, naming off malicious mystical creatures, as it lilted with the accent of a commoner's. She used to love how he almost entirely skipped his "r's," as it reminded her of who he was, who they were. Now it just reminded her of who he wasn't.  
  
She had been thinking about that a lot lately. About who they were, why they were together. "Coming, George," she replied, her voice a tad bit too sweet. Alanna searched her memory, trying to remember exactly why they were together, anyways. Had she tried to forget?  


* * *

A/N: I'll post a new chapter soon.. Math test tomorrow, and track regionals are this Saturday -- I'm competing (the real world.. *sighs*) but I'll make an attempt to post something new this weekend. R/R? 


	2. Kalasin of Conté

_Disclaimer: All Tamora. Not Me. (Except for Bedwyr of Mindelan, and miscellaneous minor - a.k.a. unnamed - characters.)_  
  
A/N: Kalasin is introduced to you, the reader; we see more of Alanna and George; Kat (me) actually writes a long-ish chapter.. Next..?  


* * *

Kalasin smiled perfectly, peals of laughter ringing throughout the room. Her teardrop ruby earrings accentuated her crimson lips, and her bejeweled hair, grown far below her shoulders, reflected the fading sunlight that filtered throughout the ballroom. Her dress was also deep garnet in color, with a fitted bodice trimmed in gold thread. It brushed the floor, with a fashionable train that followed behind her as she walked, carefully swinging her hips exactly the right amount. She caught his (all of theirs, for that matter) eyes, locked them with hers, and ran her fingers through her hair, proceeding to flip it behind her shoulders. She could feel them, the other them, her instructors, watching her closely, surely to catch any errors she made. As she completed her scripted entrance by flouncing down on an elegant window seat with velvet cushions, she felt their slight smiles - she had performed beyond their expectations. And **them** -- their hungry grins were on her back, but she shelved them aside -- all were too eager, and she had vowed to never fall in love.  
  
"I feel like a puppet," Kalasin remarked, inside her mind. "I do all they want, and more, and still I'm here --- my dreams unrealized." From the outside, none could detect her thoughts, as she crossed her legs daintily and ran her tongue over her lips, much to the visiting students' delight. Kalasin didn't even remember where they were from, why they were there - she had stopped caring long ago. For all her mentors cared, they were simply another excuse for a ball, to give them practice at skills they were expected to put to use at Court several years in the future.   
  
A young man, with brown-blond hair and hazel eyes, dressed in navy hose and a stylish cobalt tunic, came up to her and offered his hand for her to kiss. She did, daintily, brushing her lips against him. "Do you care to dance?" he asked, taking up the dance position. Kalasin felt her instructors' glares on her, and she knew she could not refuse, or else be reamed for it later.   
  
"But of course," she replied, taking his arms and immediately falling in step. "I love to dance." Inwardly she grimaced - dancing was one of the things she hated the most! "But, I'll never see him again, so it doesn't matter if I lie," she thought. "Besides, my entire life is scripted - why break away from the script here?"  
  
"Your name, m'lady?" the young man asked, his voice as formal and crisp as hers.   
  
"Kalasin of Conté," she replied. She saw that he immediately realized she was the princess, the knowledge registering on his face. He did the slightest of double takes, but did not miss a step. "And you, sire?" She instantaneously knew that she had used the wrong title, but he didn't seem to notice. [A/N: what WOULD his title be?]  
  
"Bedwyr of Mindelan," he responded coolly. [A/N: Bedwyr is a character from Welsh Mythology. In Arthurian legends Bedwyr was one of the knights of the Round Table, one of the original companions of King Arthur. He was the one who threw Excalibur into the lake after the king died.] "I'm to take that you're the princess?" He spun her around, following the steps of the dance flawlessly.  
  
"You could say that," she sighed. If this was going to be another discussion about her life in the palace, another person trying to get inside gossip about King Jonathan and Queen Thayet --- she might retch upon herself, or worse, her dancing partner. Kalasin smiled at the image in her mind of her mentors' reactions to a vomit-drenched Bedwyr! She couldn't contain it.. She laughed. And laughed.. And continued laughing, until tears were falling freely out of her eyes, until they were streaking down her satin dress. Kalasin fell out of Berwyn's arms, and was doubled over in hysterics, when she felt a hand, shaking with anger, grasp her around the shoulders tightly, and lead her aside.  
  
"Oh, Mithros!" she swore. But she was too amused by her own laughter to care much about the repercussions that were surely to come. "Just because I haven't acted like the pristine vision of a lady?"  


* * *

George and Alanna sat around a small table in a tower of Pirate's Swoop, surrounded by windows that overlooked the forest to the north and the bluffs, along with the sea, to the south. Alanna was polishing her dagger, dragging a well-oiled cloth against it repeatedly, the soft slinky noise this made comforting her. She didn't remember a time in her life when she hadn't heard this noise, from buffing one weapon or another. It mingled with the sounds of waves rolling against the shore and birds gossiping among each other. Meanwhile, George was sipping a mug of brandy. "It wakes me up in the mornin', lass," was his explanation, given long ago, when Alanna had asked about this odd habit. It appeared to anyone unknowledgeable of Alanna's most confidential thoughts that all was right between both of them. But as comfortable as George was in her presence, Alanna felt fidgety and uneasy.   
  
"George..?" she asked hesitantly, looking up from her sword to meet his eyes. He stopped sipping his brandy to glance at the question in her stare.   
  
"Lass?" he replied, shuffling the papers he held in his lap, their rough edges scraping against each other. Alanna paused, thinking. "The last thing I want to do is hurt George," she reasoned. She glanced into his face, and immediately sensed the love he felt for her, reflected in his entire being. "Oh, George," she thought miserably. "Why do you always have to make things so hard?"  
  
"...Alanna?" He brought her attention to the present. George reached across the table and cupped her chin in his, peering into her face for a clue to why she was behaving so strangely, so coldly. "Is there someth'n you'd like to talk about?"  
  
She looked at him, his eyes shining so brightly with love. She couldn't tell him her plans, her desires - it would break his heart. "I could never be so cruel," she sighed wistfully, whispering so quietly that even George could not detect her voice. "No, George," she said, louder than she intended to. "It's nothing."  
  
He had gotten used to her odd silences over the years. It was almost better to pretend they never happened, instead of risking the infamous Lioness temper. George bowed his head, and returned to his brandy.   


* * *

"Damn it!" Kalasin thrust her foot against the wall, ruining the perfectly sequined heels. "Why did I have to come here? If Father... Father... For Mithros' sake! Why aren't I at the Palace, when I could be doing something useful? Like learning how to fight in unarmed combat, or how to properly tilt!" She threw the jewels out of her hair, wincing at their sparkles as they hit the crystal dressing table. "Instead, I'm learning how to apply lip rouge in a straight line, and the proper steps of the waltz!" One particularly large ruby was caught in the masses of her russet-colored locks, and Kalasin attempted to violently tear it from its snag, but it refused to move. "By the Goddess!" she exclaimed. "It refuses to budge, just as Father refuses to listen!"   
  
Kalasin's eyes glittered with ferocity as she remembered what the novice who had taken her aside shrieked: "Kalasin of Conté! If you cannot act like a lady, don't disgrace this convent by unsuccessfully disguising yourself as one!" The remarks were not what bothered her - acting like a lady was not her forte. It was the punishment that followed - two bells of extra dancing lessons, every evening, for three weeks - as it was supposedly "embarrassing to Tortall itself that its princess cannot behave herself properly while at a ball!"  
  
Her expression teeming with exasperation and rage, Kalasin vehemently pulled open a drawer on her bureau, and rummaged around until she found what she was seeking: a gleaming pair of silver scissors. She snipped them a couple times, cutting apart the air, testing their power - their might - their fury. Then, as if coming to an abrupt decision, she took them, and cut her shining locks aggressively in the area surrounding the gem. Ever so often she'd pause, almost to examine her handiwork (although much different than the needlepoint she had been forced to practice during the previous two years) in the mirror, but really she was only caught up in her irate thoughts over her forced education ("Exile, really," Kalasin thought) at the convent. The clicking of sharp blades echoed throughout her bedchambers, vicious and clever at once. Each cut of her tresses, each memory lost, brought her closer to her goal - which was cloudy and uncertain at best.  


* * *

A/N: OK, next chapter should be Sunday/Monday... That is, if I can figure out which direction I want the story to take! To respond to some reviews...  
  
**Jip** -- OK, well, Kally's here now. *smiles* And yes, Jon is a prig, but he's a handsome prig.. LOL. And I'll be nice to George; I like his character. Besides, maybe (**maybe!**) George will develop a love interest of his own later on.   
  
**Zenin** -- Yes, George still loves her (for now, anyways). *evil laugh*  
  
**StarFire and Lady Lucy A/J 4ever** -- Yes, of course A/J! Because we all know that Alanna should have ended up with Jon in the books anyway.  
  
**Temptress, Lady Lightning, Lady Alanna Salmalin of Conte, Dreaming Reader, Paige, Leah, and Alanna** -- Thanks for reviewing!! It made me smile. *smiles, to prove her point*  
  
Umm, okay, now review? 


	3. Author Notice on Updates

**Announcement: October 26, 2002**  
  
In answer to many of your posts, I do plan on updating. However, due to an impossible *ugh* courseload this fall, I am not sure when this update will occur. Please be patient - I'm blowing off an Am. Lit paper as we speak in order to write this notice. (Although my brother's hysterical laughter at _Mr. Deeds_ is not helping, as that movie is.. distracting!!? along with hysterical.) I'll try to have an update in the next few weeks, as cross-country will be over then, but no promises. I love you all, and I'm sorry for the wait!  
  
xxxxxx Kat 


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